This disclosure is related to the general field of time and data recording, retrieval and transfer, particularly related to baby care. This device is a direct-entry information collection, storage and retrieval device that provides a means to collect, store, organize and transfer relevant baby care event information as well as to provide alarm reminders at specific times or time intervals for selected events.
In the early months of an infant's life, doctors and caregivers monitor on a number of basic physiological events to ensure general health and to detect signs of illness. Much of the information necessary is provided by parents who are often too sleep-deprived and exhausted to record or recall important details, such as the duration, frequency and amount of various biological functions and infant behaviors including nursing, urination, bowel movements, sleep patterns among other baby care events. There is a need for data collection and tracking in the earlier years of a child's life, especially in the first year.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,691,932, titled “Care Giver Data Collection and Reminder System”, Reiner et al. teaches a device for collecting information and providing reminders for individual infants. The information includes feeding times, measurable amounts of consumption of liquids or food, vomiting, bowel movements, medications, injections or shots, first words, walking, growth chart, records and doctor's appointments, allergies, allergic reaction to medications and similar issues and events. The device also provides alarm reminders to the caregivers. Reminders can be provided for the next time for medication, feeding schedule, the next expected bowel movement or the next doctor appointments among other events.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,188,311, titled “Maternity and Life Time Tracking Apparatus and Method of Use”, Rothschild et al. teaches an electronic apparatus provided to keep track of events and experiences big and small during the life of the child. For example, the day and/or date of the child's birth, celebratory events, events that relate to milestones in the child's life and similar occurrences are recorded and displayed. The invention may be installed in a wristwatch, a key chain, a baby bottle, plush toy, notebook or similar small objects. It is portable, preferably small enough and light enough to be held in a person's hand.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,314,405, titled “Medical Log Apparatus”, Richardson et al. discloses an electronic, hand held, icon driven medical log that can be used by the elderly, children, disabled individuals as well as people with minimal computer skills. The medical log includes three sets of icons. It is used for keeping track the date, time, condition, progress and location of a patient's ailments. The required entries are entered into the medical log using appropriate icons and stored in the log for later retrieval.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,886,139, titled “Method and Apparatus for Managing Infant Care”, Liu et al provides a method and apparatus for the management of complex nutritional and health requirements of infants. The portable invention collects information and can manually or automatically configure various reminders for the caregiver's use when attending to the infant. The preferred embodiment is for product information used to manage infants' complex nutritional and health requirements.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,891,779, titled “Portable Electronic Recorder and Method for Operating Same”, Pornel teaches a portable electronic device for recording data on events during the conducting of clinical trials of medicaments or analysis of human behavior provided with means for emitting signals and having memory for storing the commands given to the device. The device is particularly suitable in studies carried out by the pharmaceutical industry. To this end, it distributes standardized information regarding time intervals to be complied when administering medicaments and regarding symptoms or events whose start, end and, if appropriate, intensity, are to be recorded. This data is transmitted to local centers and then to doctors or associates, who communicate them to the patients who have been selected for the clinical trials or for studies involving analysis of human behavior. The patients are instructed to comply with the dosage regimen of one or more medicaments and to record the start and end of the occurrence of a set of predetermined symptoms or particular events for periods that may last for up to several months.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,522,477, titled “Multi-event Timer Device”, Sheldon discloses a portable electronic device for timing infant-related biological functions such as feedings, naps and diaper changes. The device consists of four buttons on the face of the device next to a display with four corresponding timer readings. The buttons are labeled with symbols representing infant biological functions to facilitate universal usage. The device also comprises switches to lock and unlock the device, to turn the alarm sound on and off as well as to indicate which breast was last used to nurse. Also, there is a light button. The four timers are count-up timers to indicate the time since the last biological function. Alarms can be set in half hour intervals for each timer. When a timer button is pressed again after it has been started, the timer is reset and returns to zero. The device has no recording, retrieving or transferring of information capability.
The benefits of breastfeeding a baby are numerous and well known. Pediatricians and lactation consultants recommend that mothers nurse their infants up to the first year of life. Trends in feeding times and durations can be very helpful to mothers who are nursing and/or pumping as well as formula-feeding their babies. To build milk production, nursing mothers are advised to begin nursing and/or pumping eight to twelve times a day, with each feeding/pumping being at most two to three hours after the start of the last feeding/pumping. The duration and/or ounces of milk produced during nursing and pumping sessions, specific to which breast was last used, is also critical information for building and maintaining milk production. Often times, if a consistent nursing/pumping schedule is not kept up in the first few months or even later in the first year when infants begin to eat solid foods, a mother's milk production will decrease and may cease altogether. To help track relevant feeding/pumping information, the present invention provides brightly colored and illuminated number buttons from 1 through 12 to alert the mother to which number feeding/pumping is next. In addition, there is a number display on the information screen indicating the same information. Also, the device tracks other information integral to building and maintaining milk production. For example, the amount of time an infant nurses or a mother pumps from the beginning, not the end, of the last feeding is tracked. In addition, the total number of ounces the child has consumed by nursing and/or formula-feedings as well as a the amount of breast milk a mother has pumped for the day are all important information to a nursing mother.
Similarly, data about the duration and time of day of naps as well as a infant's total sleep time in a 24-hour period is important to ensure an infant is getting the pediatrician-recommended number of hours of sleep a day for his/her particular stage of development In addition, tracking changes or trends in nap times can help parents put their babies on healthier sleep schedules.
Parents of newborns will be advised to count the total number of urinations and bowel movements per day. These numbers, if they are not within what is considered a normal range, can indicate a serious medical problem and even threaten a newborn's survival in the first few weeks of life. Using the present invention, this information can be instantly retrieved at anytime with the push of a button.
In summary, as anyone who has ever cared for a newborn or young baby understands, recording the number of events in a particular category of baby care within a 24-hour period; the time of and since a previous event began and/or ended; its duration; as well as its quantity (if applicable) can be critical in maintaining an infant's health.
In addition to the typical baby care related information discussed above, parents often need to record other types of information if their infant is not well including but not limited to the reading of temperatures to detect fevers, the time and frequency of vomiting as well as durations of long periods of crying. All this information can assist a healthcare professional to diagnose and treat a medical problem as well as to advise the parents about how to care for their sick baby. For example, knowledge of trends of infant vomiting related to feedings can aid a doctor in diagnosing Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD). Similarly, trends about when and how long an infant cries can help rule out colic. Colic is often diagnosed between two weeks and four months of age and is commonly defined as episodes of sustained crying in a well-fed and dry infant which lasts for more than three hours a day for more than three days a week for over three weeks. Furthermore, trends in how long and when a baby cries in combination with information about sleep can also aid parents in sleep-training their babies or developing a sleep schedule.
It is important to note that as difficult as it is for sleep-deprived parents to record all the different kinds of information recommended to maintain the health of their baby, it may be even more difficult for those parents to organize this information in a coherent manner to discuss with their pediatrician during the minimum of nine well-visits infants are scheduled during the first 18 months of their lives as well as to quickly detect for themselves if there is a problem and to immediately contact their pediatrician. Unfortunately, for most babies, it is precisely this period of time in their lives when their parents often lack the clarity of mind to be able to record or organize anything in an intelligible manner. On the other hand, a much more manageable task for parents would be to push a few easily identified and/or illuminated buttons on a portable device in their hands, around their neck or propped next to them, which will not only record the critical numbers, quantities and times of various baby care events but will organize them in an easily understood graph or chart format to be viewed, printed and/or emailed.
There are other methods of direct-entry data collection, retrieval and organization available to parents today. There are applications (APPS) on phones and tablets which are designed to record, store and organize some or all of the same information this device records, however, these devices usually have touch screens which easily lend themselves to data entry errors and, therefore, are not a reliable option for a bleary-eyed exhausted parent. Furthermore, these portable devices are used for many other purposes and are not specifically dedicated to baby care. Subsequently, the phones and tablets containing the baby care applications are usually personal devices that travel with their owners and are, therefore, not convenient for the care of most babies, who often have more than one caregiver.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,522,477, titled “Multi-event Timer Device”, Sheldon discloses a “Multi-event Timer Device” portable electronic device, comprising of a light, lock and alarm function along with four timers, dedicated to timing infant-related biological functions such as feedings, naps and diaper changes. The device is very easy for parents to use. Its direct-entry design and function provides important information, such as the time since the last feeding, nap or diaper change and provides this information simultaneously on one display giving a parent instant access to the information. Although Sheldon's device offers helpful alarms and simultaneously displays four count-up timers labeled for various baby care events, it is essentially just a multiple timer device of which there are many on the market. Sheldon's timer does not provide parents with recordable and retrievable information to monitor their baby's continued development. The present invention provides the same information Sheldon's device does and much more, although not simultaneously displayed. So, with the slight effort of a button push when the device is in its Locked and inactive mode, a parent is provided with not only the time since the last input for a particular baby care event but also the chronological number of that event in a 24 hour period as displayed on the information screen next to the timer reading. When the device is unlocked, a parent can access even more specific information including running totals, duration and amounts for various baby care events. As it is presented, Sheldon's timing device has no recording, retrieving, organizing or transferring of data capability so the information that is available is very limited for a parent wishes to use the device to monitor the development of their infant.
On the other side of the spectrum, Reiner et al.'s “Care Giver Data Collection and Reminder System”, U.S. Pat. No. 5,691,932, discloses a device which has a very wide scope for collecting information regarding infant care. Some of this information is irrelevant for parents of newborns and young infants and most of it is very difficult to input and retrieve. While the device collects some of the same comprehensive data as the present invention, such as times, amounts and totals for various baby care events, the focus of the information and manner in which the device functions, particularly its method of data entry, suggests it is unsuitable for use by typical parents of newborns or infants. In fact, Reiner et al states that the device was designed to track information to “assist the parents of children with special needs [or illnesses] in keeping very accurate information.”
Reiner et al also asserts that the device is designed for universal use by parents, daycares or other caregivers of infants. Still, the manner in which the device functions compared to the present invention suggests otherwise. A representative example of how Reiner et al's device vastly differs from the device at hand is to examine a typical situation for a parent of a young infant. For instance, an exhausted and sleep-deprived mother of a newborn wakes up at 3:00 am to feed her baby a bottle and change his diaper containing both urine and a bowel movement, a common occurrence. To record the diaper change, the mother must first press the Mode button on the device four times then the Record button to record the bowel movement; then she must press the Mode button five times then the Record button to record the urination; and then she must press the Mode button one time and then the Record button to record the time of the feeding; then she must press the Mode button once again and then the Amount button and finally keep pressing the “+” and “−” buttons until the number of ounces the baby consumed is obtained and then the Record button to record that amount. In contrast, to record the same information with the present invention, the same mother would only have to slide the Lock switch to Unlock, press the urination button and the corresponding number button which will light up and be displayed on the screen along with the urination icon, then the bowel movement button and the corresponding number button which will light up and be displayed on the screen along with the bowel movement icon, then the bottle button and the corresponding number button which will light up and be displayed on the screen along with the bottle feeding icon. Then, the mother presses the OZ button and finally the 4 button, the decimal point button and the five button. That is a total of only 10 button pushes of specifically labeled and easily identifiable buttons dedicated to each separate function with the present invention compared to 24 button pushes of four generic buttons with Reiner et al's device. Therefore, not only is Reiner et al's device not intuitive or user-friendly for a parent but the possibility of data entry mistakes is also much greater with that device. Furthermore, when using the present invention, any mistakenly inputted data can be instantly cleared by pressing the Clear button.
Another example of how the present invention can be distinguished from Reiner et al's is that the Mode button needs to be pressed seven times just to access the single mode of Doctor appointments and that does not include the button pushing required to input data in that mode. One embodiment of the device even allows for the input of textual messages as well. This exemplifies not only how cumbersome data entry can be for a typical caregiver using Reiner et al's device but also shows the objective and broad scope of the health-related data the device aims to collect.
In another embodiment, Reiner et al's device allows for interfacing with a hospital computer. While the present invention could easily be used by hospitals and synched with their computers, this invention's primary objective is to make the lives of infants' parents a little less chaotic and a little more organized. Reiner et al also states that the device has the capacity to download information in an “intelligible” manner or a “data dump” without providing any further detail. In contrast, one of the major functions of the present invention is to have its downloaded information organized in charts and graphs, such as bar graphs, so that a parent can instantly see how their baby is progressing across several different domains of care in a single 24 hour time period as well as on a weekly/monthly basis. In addition, the computer program associated with the present invention will organize the collected information and graph it along with standard infant percentile charts so that a parent can see how their baby's development is progressing compared to other infants his/her age.
As of yet, the only small, portable and specifically dedicated method of comprehensively recording all pertinent infant care information in a format that is easily reviewed and accessible by a variety of caregivers is through handwritten form in a journal. The problems with this method are numerous and obvious to anyone who has attempted it. It can be difficult for tired caregivers to remember and to record data, especially during late night feedings and diaper changes, as well as cumbersome to a carry pen, journal and timing device with them at all times. Also, the journal method leaves all the organization of the information up to the parents, which requires more time and attention, something these parents do not have any to spare.
In contrast to other devices and methods of infant data collection and retrieval, this portable device allows a parent, through an intuitive method of direct-entry data collection, to track a few specific events that are most relevant to their newborn or infant's health. While the device has the ability to be synched or interfaced with a hospital computer to track particular babies' health in pediatric or maternity wards, its main objective is to collect, retrieve and organize information in a manner which would be particularly helpful to new parents who are advised to closely monitor various biological functions when they leave the hospital with their newborn babies. The data entry system is simple enough for even an exhausted parent of a young infant to accurately input or access information in the middle of the night.
However, it is important to note that the device's utility does not end when a child is toilet-trained and no longer nursed, bottle or baby food fed. The device has several baby care event categories that can be useful to parents throughout their child's life, particularly during times of illness. There are temperature, medication and vomiting buttons, which can assist parents in monitoring an illness and to not only verbally report the collected information to their pediatrician or emergency room doctor but also to print or email a copy of the pertinent graphed data.